


Gilded Doves

by ParabolaBeam



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 15:32:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10128974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParabolaBeam/pseuds/ParabolaBeam
Summary: She stopped to look at the birds the way he would stop to look at her. [2B/9S, possibly.]





	

She'd never seen birds before.

 

She was a deadly symphony in motion, halted not by bullet, not by blade, but by-

 

-a harmless, flighted prey animal.

 

9S could understand.

 

She stopped to look at the birds the way he would stop to look at her.

 

But that was where all similarities ceased.

 

Through a desolate and quiet ruin her body tore through. The slaughter was clean. She moved and he watched. She sliced through space without meaning or wanting to inspire the harmony or kindness or affectionate wistfulness of watching birds soar, to depend on the winds to be kind and favorable.

 

She was not nearly so fragile as to need luck or favor.

 

" _9S_." Their communications feed blares to life after a long interval of silent, methodical devastation. Her voice is clipped and sharp, cuts him so deeply to the quick. " _I need your immediate assistance. Land at the coordinates I'm transmitting and execute diagnostics on the sample I have recovered._ "

 

"Y-Yes ma'am!"

 

The transmission doesn't end and 2B says nothing.

 

"I mean-2B."

 

_-End Transmission-_

 

...

 

2B had been as purposeful with her ambiguity as she was purposeful with her blade.

 

She knows he's not sure what to expect when he arrives.

 

Least of all, a stiff, motionless white bird lain across her cold, open palms.

 

A solitary bullet is wedged partway through its chest, weeping red around the wound.

 

"It flew in front of the pod during combat." She summarizes, without supplying further comment.

 

9S hesitates, then reaches out, presuming to take it. To try to fix what is already far gone.

 

"I'm not _infantile_. I'm completely aware it's dead."

 

The eyes of the bird are glassy and sightless. 9S opens his mouth and closes it again without saying anything.

 

The bird, likewise, lays gaping.

 

...

 

"Don't touch it. Just look."

 

He nods and examines the small corpse. From a precursory examination the bird appears to have died mid-flight. Rigor mortis has set in within the outstretched wings. Death was instantaneous via a single bullet wound.

 

The pod's bullets were rapid fire, but could pierce through metal easily.

 

They could pierce through a _bird_ like paper-

 

-ah, so why didn't it? It never made it all the way through.

 

Furthermore, it is unusual for the bird to have been so unfortunate as to fly in the path of a stream of bullets, only to be hit by one-

 

-unless its course had been anticipated.

 

If it had been anticipated with intention to prevent-

 

-yes, the rate of fire could have slowed to a less deadly caliber.

 

In an instant, 9S understood.

 

The one bullet that made it was 2B's margin for error.

 

That was what she was showing him.

 

"Do not soar so close to me." She intones seriously. "We're through here. Understood?"

 

He doesn't know how to answer.

 

She tells him emotions are prohibited, but everything she does invokes emotional response.

 

"...Yes ma'am."

 

He answers to the part of herself she's made him privy to and for a just a moment, her mouth curves, slightly less neutral than usual.

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from tumblr cause they give me no love, ahaha. I adore these character designs and I can't wait for the game to come out. Their relationship is incredibly intriguing and the part in the demo where 2B stops to stare stunned at the birds taking flight really resonated with me. I want to write more of these two quite a bit.
> 
> I left the ending ambiguous on purpose: if you want to tell me whether you like to believe she smiled or frowned at the end, I'd be eagerly interested to hear your thoughts!
> 
> For those of you still waiting on an update to a certain despair girls fic, my deepest apologies for it being a long time coming but I AM still working on it-more lately than I have been. Things have sure gotten wild so I'm working hard. Thanks for your patience!


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